Y2K Solved - Middle East

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Y2K status reports on Middle Eastern countries

LONDON, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Below is a country-by-country breakdown of preparations by Middle Eastern nations to deal with millennium bug problems in the key areas of electricity, telecommunications, water distribution and aviation.

--ALGERIA

Electricity: State-run Sonelgaz has done simulation tests on its domestic network that showed no problems arising from the millennium changeover, says Abrouss Dahbia, head of the firm's communication department.

Telecoms: Hachemi ben Hamdi, head of the Information Technology department at the Telecommunications Ministry, says state-run Algerian Telecom and Post has already conducted comprehensive upgrading and testing. A simulated changeover to January 1, 2000 to test international switchboards was conducted last week with France Telecom. The test showed equipment is 2YK compliant, he said.

Water: Hedi Hamass, chief of the information and computing service at the EPEAL water utility, says most facilities use old technology. ``Any bug problem which may arise by the year-end turning date will have no impact on the water supply because our main systems, like pumping and control stations, are not run by computers,'' he adds.

Aviation: Mohmed Hailimi, an IT official at the state-owned Air Algerie airline, says that all equipment has been upgraded and tested with help from Boeing and Airbus. He adds that Air Algerie will not fly between 2200 GMT on December 31 and January 1, as a precaution.

--BAHRAIN

Electricity, Water: The Electricity and Water Ministry said in a statement that all production and distribution facilities were 2000 compliant.

Telecoms: Chief Executive of Bahrain Telecommunications Co Andrew Hearn said his company was 100 percent Y2K ready.

Aviation: A senior official said Bahrain international airport was fully Y2K compliant and would be fully operational during the rollover to 2000.

--EGYPT

Electricity: Ehab Elwy, director of the government's Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics in charge of millennium compliance, says the sector is fully Y2K-compliant. Contingency and back-up plans have been tested for all sectors.

Telecoms: The sector is fully Y2K-compliant. Contingency and back-up plans have been tested, Elwy says.

Water: This sector is not computerised, but emergency plans have been drawn up anyway.

Aviation: The sector is fully Y2K-compliant.

Suez Canal: The canal has been made fully Y2K-compliant.

Elwy says each sector will have a 24-hour operations room, reporting to CAPMAS every four hours from before midnight December 31 to January 2.

--IRAN

Electricity, water: Senior Energy Ministry official Reza Ardakanian said no disruptions are expected in the supply of water and electricity.

Telecoms: Post and Telecommunications Minister Reza Aref said that Iran will face no telecom hitches from the Y2K bug.

Aviation: Iran Air head Ahmad Reza Kazemi has said that all flight-related systems are Y2K compliant. Other officials gave similar assurances about Iran's civil aviation facilities.

Oil: Mohammad Sepehri-Rad, who heads Iran's Y2K compliance programme, has said that the country's two newest refineries, in Arak and Bandar Abbas, may face possible disruptions.

He said chances of disruptions in various fields were ``far from zero,'' blaming economic sanctions by the United States for delays in Iran's Y2K compliance programme.

Experts say Iran might be less vulnerable to the bug because of the low-tech nature of its services and industry.

--ISRAEL

Electricity: Rafi Peled, president and CEO of state-owned Israel Electric Corp, said in a statement the company has completed preparations. ``We will be up to the task of supplying electricity on and after 1st January 2000,'' he said. The company initiated a Y2K Infrastructure Forum to ensure coordination among the country's major utilities.

Telecoms: Yossi Agiv, head of the Jerusalem and southern section of state-controlled Bezeq Israel Telecom , said Bezeq had successfully tested all of its systems and set up a programme to deal with problems that might result. The company said it had spent about $63 million on preparations.

Water: Amos Epstein, general manager of the government's Mekorot Water Co, said the company is ready after four years of preparation. Back-up plans include delivering water by trucks to farmers around Israel.

Aviation: Avner Yarkoni, director-general of Israel's Civil Aviation Administration, said airports have been declared Y2K compliant by the International Air Transport Association and International Civil Aviation Organisation. Contingency plans include signed agreements to permit planes headed for Israel to land in Jordan and Egypt.

--JORDAN

Electricity: National Electricity Company official Khaled Amr says all necessary modifications in computers and computer programmes completed in the sectors of power generation, distribution and observation and control. He anticipates no disruption of services.

Telecoms: The head of the Y2K department at the Jordan Telecommunications Company, Mohammad Khasawneh, says the sole provider of land lines has prepared almost all of its network, including every switchboard in the country, to deal with the problem.

Water: Officials say they have run a comprehensive test of all computers and implemented modifications where needed. They say they are confident no problems will arise but have drawn up an emergency plan to supply the various regions of the kingdom if faced with any failures.

Aviation: Royal Jordanian director general and chief executive, Nader al-Zahabi, said the kingdom's national carrier and three airports are 98 to 100 percent ready for the Y2K problem, according to IATA data.

--KUWAIT

Electricity: Minister of Electricty Adel al-Subaih has said his department was ready for Y2K.

Telecoms: Spokesman for the state's central Y2K team Faisal al-Shayejji and other officials have said that the oil-rich state does not expect any malfunctions in all vital services, including electricity, water and communications.

Water: Officials said successfully tested and do not expect Y2K-related interruptions.

Aviation: Civil Aviation department has announced that the country's only international airport and all related services were Y2K compliant and that a document to that effect was signed with IATA.

--LEBANON

Electricity: Aly Nahle, head of information techonology at the Bank of Lebanon and of the nationwide Y2K task force, says 90 percent of all electricity generators and power plants are Y2K compliant. The remaining 10 percent are in the final testing stage, which he expects will be finished by the end of this week.

Telecoms: Thirty percent of international switchboards are still being modified to become millennium compliant and this will take three days. Local switchboards have been modified.

Water: The Y2K bug is not an issue for Lebanon's water sector since the technology is not that sophisticated.

Aviation: Beirut airport has been millennium compliant for the past two weeks. All equipment also been tested by delegations from the International Air Transport Association and the International Civil Aviation Organisation.

Nahle said every sector had drafted contingency plans and put together task forces which would report to a central operations room.

--MOROCCO

Electricity: Radia Laraki, national Y2K coordinator, says the state-run power utilities authority had been 100 percent ready since September. A contingency plan is also in place in case of Y2K problems that would allow the switching of power from one generator to another to avoid any disruption.

Telecoms: State-run Maroc Telecom has already conducted comprehensive tests and upgraded equipment in cooperation with firms such as Alcatel and Ericsson. A test with France on November 30 showed that international switchboards are millennium compliant.

Water: Utilities and control stations are 100 percent compliant.

Aviation: All equipment at Moroccan airports has been tested by international aviation experts who found no problems.

Laraki said representatives from 50 vital sectors, ministries and banks had drafted contingency plans to deal with any emergency after studying how each sector would affect the other's operation. She said the government had set December 15 as a target date for 100 percent preparedness.

--OMAN

Electricity, Water: The director of planning in the Electricity and Water Ministry, Taher Sajwani, said the ministry did not expect supply interruptions. He said if any unforeseen problems occurred, the ministry would revert to a comprehensive manual back-up system.

Telecoms: Post and Telecommunications Minister Ahmed bin Suwaidan al-Balushi said the Oman Telecommunications Co (Omantel) had ensured all fixed and mobile telephone systems were Y2K compliant, including paging systems and voice mail, but a contingency plan was in place in case of any failures.

Aviation: The head of the Civil Aviation Authority's Y2K compliance office, Nasser Ali Masood, said both local and GMT millennium transitions had been thoroughly tested for compliance and no problems were expected.

--PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES

Electricity: Palestinian-ruled areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip depend on Israel for 98 percent of their electricity, therefore much of the Palestinian Authority readiness is dependent on Israel.

Nabil Shaath, Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, said Palestinians and Israelis were working to ensure a problem-free flow of electricity, but that some necessary equipment had yet to be purchased.

The U.S. Agency for International Development assessed PA Y2K readiness for electricity and a contingency plan was made.

Ghassan Qadah, senior technology adviser at the Planning Ministry, said he expects ``isolated'' disturbances. ``We feel that any problems, if there are any, will be isolated in scattered districts but we don't expect any major crisis.''

Telecoms: Shaath said he expected no hitches in the telecommunications system, modified jointly with Israel.

Palestinian traffic through Israel's network is about 70 percent, Qadah said.

The Palestine Telecommunications Company has been working on its readiness since 1998, Qadah said. They have developed and tested contingency plans and set up an emergency centre. ``We believe if there will be problems, they too will be isolated.''

Water: The West Bank receives about 40 percent of its water from the Israeli state water company and Gaza about 11 percent. Many Palestinian homes have roof tanks and can last two-three days without piped water.

Qadah said many of the programmable logic controls -- which regulate water flow -- can be bypassed but local disturbances with water and sewerage were expected.

Shaath said: ``The real computer problems we have been trying to solve were in...water, health and transportation.''

Aviation: Gaza airport is new and Qadah said the authorities do not expect major problems. The PA status report as of December 11 says ``moderate'' disturbances are expected.

--QATAR

Electricity, Water: Ibrahim Fakhroo, head of Y2K technical committee at the Electricity and Water Ministry, said power and water supply would not be disrupted by the millennium bug. ``Not only are our embedded system and IT system fully Y2K compliant but also we have a contingency plan to meet any eventuality,'' he said, adding that the plans included running power plants on crude oil if the gas supply failed.

Telecoms: Qatar Telecom (Q-Tel) , the sole telecommunications provider, said it had spent 30 million riyals ($8 million) to ensure Y2K compliance. Q-Tel's Public Relations Manager Waleed Mohamed al-Sayed said that since the end of September ``We have achieved full compliance and tested all our equipment and for a contingency we have mobile generators on stand-by.''

Aviation: The deputy director of civil aviation, Ali Hamad al-Mulla, said: ``All systems at Doha International Airport are fully Y2K compliant as required by international agencies, like the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and International Air Transport Authority (IATA).''

-- Llama man (llama@cool.net), December 15, 1999

Answers

llama; Ever lived in the middle east? I have' and these take me back to those wild and crazy times. They are funny too.

-- Noone (Noone@none.com), December 15, 1999.

The information regarding Iran and the oil refineries is inaccurate. There 2 new refineries are still under construction. There are 2 older refineries that are the ones of concern because they were built while the Shah was in power and used some of the earliest USA computers and early embeddeds were used (according to an Iranian spokesman in a recent press release of a couple of weeks ago). The Iranian problem is that with the US embargo on technology they cannot get parts to replace Y2K hardware problems. Also having trouble remediating the code. Seems they can't get any American programmers to help them. Gee, I wonder why? Would YOU wanna go over there? I still remember the hostage crisis, how about you?

Also, Egypt was put on the CIA list as one of the nations in great difficulty... as reported to the Senate Y2K committee.

Oddly enough, I don't see Saudi Arabia in here anywhere.

Also another missing nation is Iraq which also has admitted a FOF policy for its oil infrastructure.

HOW CONVEEEEENIENTLY we don't seem to have those nations listed here.

-- R.C. (racambab@mailcity.com), December 16, 1999.


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